Homebuilders see revenue gains
U.S. homebuilders are seeing revenue growth — and they have their lending businesses, not construction, to thank, Bloomberg News reported.

Both Lennar and Pulte Group, the first- and second-largest builders by market value, posted the largest overall profits since 2006 in the third quarter of this year, Bloomberg said — mostly due to growth in their lending arms. See the video after the jump…. [more]

From left: Joe Petersen of Insight Real Estate Strategies and a single-family home for rent

Home builders are finally responding to market conditions and taking the unusual step of building single-family properties specifically to rent them out, CNBC reported. The trend may provide at least a partial explanation as to how multi-family construction fell while single-family construction rose in today’s housing starts data — despite the fact that the market for rentals has arguably never been hotter and the home sales market is only starting to show signs of life. [more]

A McMansion

McMansions, a housing type left for dead following the real estate crash, powered yesterday’s positive new home sales report, builders told the Wall Street Journal. During the recession the average size of U.S. homes shrunk 3.4 percent to 2,382 square feet, but in 2011 the average size actually grew 5.2 percent to 2,505 square feet. [more]

Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and several other notable investors have turned bullish on the U.S. housing market, the Wall Street Journal reported, buying up shares of home building companies, like Pulte Group, Beazer Homes and Hovnanian Enterprises. Those stocks are up 30 percent since the end of the third quarter, according to Dow Jones, far outpacing the 10.5 percent increase recorded by the Standard & Poor’s 500.

In a recent report, Goldman said it expects home prices to decline 3 percent next year, before gaining 30 percent — not taking inflation into account — through 2022… [more]

From the South Florida website: News that home sales rose nationally by 7.3 percent was also positive for the South Florida home building market, which isn’t dynamic, but is beginning to progress, as seen in the video above. “There are pockets of strength,” said Brad Hunter, head of Metrostudy, a Palm Beach-based real estate analytics firm.

Even though sales are lethargic in the new home market nationwide, home builder stocks are hanging tough, according to CNNMoney. Despite a 17 percent drop in the number of new homes sold between February and January, major U.S. home builders like Ryland, KB Home and Lennar have seen their shares stay relatively flat recently, while PulteGroup actually saw its shares climb 3 percent. Ryan Detrick, a senior technical strategist with Schaffer’s Investment Research, said he’s encouraged by the builders’ stock performance. “I’m not saying you should go buy a house because nobody knows where prices are going,” Detrick said. “But even though the data is terrible, builder stocks are holding up.” [CNNMoney]

In the wake of luxury home builder Toll Brothers’ surprising third-quarter report, which showed the company’s shares have climbed 6 percent since the last fiscal quarter, many market analysts are quick to compare the company to other luxury good purveyors that have thrived despite recessionary stress. But the Wall Street Journal’s Dawn Wotapka said it’s dangerous to compare Toll to luxe companies like Tiffany & Co. Despite that “general argument… that high-end consumers are faring better than the broader market,” builder analyst Stifel Nicolaus said, mass-market builders and a lack of discretionary products from Toll mean the company lacks maneuverability. “There is no “Breakfast at Toll,” Wotapka said, referring to the popular Audrey Hepburn film, noting that there no such thing as a Toll silver telephone dialer, either. [WSJ]

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A quarterly report from home builder D.R. Horton reflects an undue level of market enthusiasm, due to the tax credit’s artificial boost, according to the Wall Street Journal. Donald Tomnitz, CEO of D.R. Horton, said that his company scrambled to build for any buyer that “had a pulse and… were warm,” during the tax credit boom, resulting in a 60 percent uptick in quarterly closings. Unfortunately, as with other home builders, some of those buyers later backed out or didn’t qualify for mortgages. And the future doesn’t look too bright, either, according to real estate analyst Mike Larson, who noted that the post-tax credit drop-off in activity has been significant. “If you’re looking for a pulse in the U.S. housing market, best of luck,” said Larson, an analyst with Weiss Research. “I can’t seem to find one.” Data on homebuyers, released by the National Association of Realtors, also paints a bleak picture, with the number of people signing contracts dipping 2.6 percent between June and May. [WSJ]

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